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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27692750">lavender light</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/haloud/pseuds/haloud'>haloud</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Cuddling &amp; Snuggling, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Morning Feels, Nebulous Well-Adjusted Future</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 02:42:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,423</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27692750</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/haloud/pseuds/haloud</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael and Alex spend every morning together they can, but Alex still hasn't gotten used to how Michael looks in his bed just before he wakes.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Michael Guerin/Alex Manes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>139</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>lavender light</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Alex could almost be fooled into thinking he chose this house just for how the light would hit Michael in the early morning.</p>
<p>In reality, he chose this house out of a bunch a realtor threw at him because of the defensibility of its exits, the quietness of the neighborhood, and the size of the porch. In reality, it was just that Forrest preferred to sleep on the other side of the bed, so every morning the light hit Alex first.</p>
<p>But in the just woken mist of Alex’s mind, the thin, pale light reveals Michael more than it transforms him. The golden, extraterrestrial, extraordinary quality that he’s blazoned with in the sun, in firelight, in the dim lighting of a bar is washed away, leaving only the man behind. Even in his Airstream, Michael glowed in the light let in through paper and newsprint gone waxy and yellow with age and with sun. The first time Alex saw him there, his hands had moved on their own, pulling and grasping and digging in, trying to hold on, trying to catch a hummingbird with his bare hands, trying to hold on to fire.</p>
<p>Michael is more than the quick and darting things he’s been, though, now, more than light and plasma, more than the idea of himself Alex carried next to his heart through hell. The man sharing Alex’s bed has scars and moles and lines from the sheets crisscrossing his arms. He sleeps in shorts he always kicks off in the middle of the night, and when he first wakes up his gorgeous hair is a mass of beautiful frizz that takes half an hour to tame. He creeps closer while he’s sleeping, and Alex wakes up with limbs asleep halfway through the night for Michael’s weight resting on them as, unconscious, he tries to get closer. He’s so warm in sleep Alex started showering in the morning just out of necessity.</p>
<p>He’s <em>real.</em></p>
<p>Alex never looked back when he left Michael in motel rooms in early mornings.</p>
<p>Part of him doesn’t want to look back now, wants to crawl out of bed and take his meds and start his day and wait for Michael to wake up and shuffle out to the kitchen to join him. It’s an old, self-preserving instinct. If he stays right here, he can close his eyes for a few minutes more, maybe doze off with his head against Michael’s warm shoulder, wake up again together and trade lazy kisses and touches until they get hungry enough to justify leaving their little bubble for breakfast.</p>
<p>There’s nothing to hide from anymore, nothing to run from. It’s okay. He’s going to be okay. <em>They</em> will be. It’s hard to remember, but he’s working on it.</p>
<p>Michael’s weight shifts; he turns his head toward Alex, face still soft with sleep. Alex’s stomach flops helplessly, and he reaches over to touch his cheek, so lightly he wouldn’t disturb him, just enough to feel the heat of his skin, even softer after sleep, and the roughness of his stubble. His fingertips tingle at the texture. He slides his thumb over to touch his lower lip, full and slack. A little smile pulls at Alex’s cheeks, and he can only imagine the sappy look he must be wearing.</p>
<p>Fuck whatever plans he had today. This is all he needs.</p>
<p>He takes Michael’s hand and tugs his arm around his waist, then settles down, closing his eyes, basking in the closeness and the smell of rain on his sheets and on his skin where Michael’s left it, measuring his breaths to Michael’s.</p>
<p>Dozing lightly, he dips in and out of dreams, half-formed fleeting thoughts of warm desert winds, dreams of fingers on guitar strings and half-remembered audience faces, dreams of hands on his body and words trapped behind his lips. He only wakes again when the sensation of strong hands running from his sternum to his belly and back again wanders out of his dreams and back into his body.</p>
<p>He opens his eyes.</p>
<p>“Mornin’,” Michael says, voice still a little raspy from sleep. He bends down and kisses Alex’s clavicle, and Alex hums, ruffling the back of his hair and kissing the top of his head while it’s bent in turn.</p>
<p>“Morning. How’d you sleep?”</p>
<p>Michael tilts his head. Somehow, after all this time, he looks the same in love as he did at seventeen, and the wave of love that bursts the dam in Alex’s chest is almost too powerful to bear, so he hides his own face against Michael’s chest, feeling more than hearing Michael’s quiet laugh, buzzing through everywhere they’re connected.</p>
<p>Michael runs a hand down Alex’s spine to the top of his ass then back up. “I always sleep great when I’m with you,” he murmurs, and Alex’s heart gives another undignified thump.</p>
<p>How can he always just <em>say </em>this stuff? Even now, it’s too much. Alex only wants to kiss him until neither of them can breathe, wants to put his love on Michael’s body, on his most basic functions, like how Michael messes with the rhythm of his heart in only the best of ways. But he settles for looking up at him and speaking, however inadequately, instead.</p>
<p>“Me too. I wish you could be here every night.”</p>
<p>“Oh yeah?” Michael moves them so that his leg slots between Alex’s thighs, so they’re sharing one pillow face to face, so Alex can almost count his eyelashes. He grins, his eyes going lidded, continuing, “’Cause I wear you out?”</p>
<p>“No. Because I love you. And love spending time with you. And waking up to you. Having you here in the morning, I feel…peaceful. When you’re not here, I usually stare at the ceiling for ten minutes just thinking about if you’re awake yet, how you slept, when I can see you again…”</p>
<p>Alex flushes. Michael just blinks at him, mouth parted slightly.</p>
<p>“Sorry, that was probably too much.”</p>
<p>“No! No, not at all.” His voice is raspy again, throaty. Alex kisses his Adam’s apple, rests his forehead against the column of Michael’s throat until Michael responds, “I love you too. Sharing a bed we both really fit on with you. Waking up to you. Like this morning, waking up and knowing you <em>wanted </em>to be close to me, ‘cause of the way my hands were on you, I knew you did that. And I can barely stand it, I love you so much.”</p>
<p>“Good. I’m glad. I’m glad I moved in here instead of staying out at the cabin.”</p>
<p>“Same. Didn’t know what to make of the place at first, but it’s nice not having to get up at the ass crack of dawn just to have a shot in hell of getting to work on time.”</p>
<p>“You have work today?”</p>
<p>“Nah. Day off. Been taking a lot of Saturdays lately. Sanders complains I’m going soft, but…what can I say? He’s right.”</p>
<p>Alex inches down so he can kiss right over Michael’s heart. “I like it when you’re soft.”</p>
<p>He likes his life with Michael. He likes the life they’re building together, in spite of every odd. He likes living in a mind and body that let him see the early-morning Michael within him even when he’s at his most incandescent. He likes the them they’re becoming.</p>
<p>Michael chuckles warmly, and Alex pinches him lightly on the ass just for the ‘<em>You like me when I’m hard too’ </em>comment he’s <em>not </em>saying, and that only makes Michael laugh harder, bringing his own hand down to encircle Alex’s wrist, then to slide their fingers together, still pressed low against Michael’s hip. Warmth blooms in Alex’s stomach, but there’s time for that later.</p>
<p>There’s time for a lot of things, later. Like Michael fetching milk and cereal for breakfast with his powers because neither of them want to leave the bed. Like getting up just to use the bathroom but fetching his guitar, too, and passing it back and forth between them, playing song covers and snatches of something new. All Alex’s notes sound sweeter when the wood is warmed by Michael’s hands first.</p>
<p>And there will be time even further down the line, for Alex to ask what Michael thinks about them making this a permanent arrangement, about them finding a place for both of them, together, not just sleeping over at Alex’s for his bed, but a home that’s <em>theirs. </em></p>
<p>But for now, Alex just holds Michael close and hides his smile against his skin.</p>
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